Social Theory resource on trial

Social Theory from Alexander Street Press provides a comprehensive coverage of major social thinkers together with seminal texts from lesser writers. Essential for study in the areas of politics, economics, history, psychology, anthropology, religion, and literature, the works of many important thinkers in sociology have remained inaccessible until now. For many writers, the project represents the first availability of a major scholarly edition of their collected works. Extensive licensing allows readers to see both the original works and translations, searchable together in a single database for the first time. At completion, the product will include more than 150,000 pages, with well over half of the materials in copyright.

On trial until 26 November 2009

ARTStor now on trial

ARTStor is a “digital library of more than one million images and related data in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes”.

Recent additions include collaborations with The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to share more than 1,400 images of works from its permanent collection, and with the Saint Louis Art Museum to share approximately 1,700 images of works from its permanent collection in the Digital Library.

See the Library trials page for details about accessing ARTStor and don’t forget to give us some feedback.

Palgrave e-book Collection database on trial

On trial until 9 October 2009

Palgrave Connect is an ebook collection in the Humanities, the Social Sciences and Business. Over 4000 Palgrave Macmillan ebooks are available in collections organized by year of publication and by discipline. Categories for education include

• Aims & Objectives
• Curricula
• Educational Reform
• General
• Higher Education
• History
• Multicultural Education
• Non-Formal Education
• Organizations & Institutions
• Parent Participation
• Teaching

The trial won’t give you access to the full range of books but will let you see what is available.
Should we add this database to our collections? Please test this database and use our evaluation form to let us know soon.

SAGE Reference Online

We have a trial currently of Sage Reference Online. It covers a range of discipline areas but the relevant works in education are listed below. Let us know what you think via the feedback form.

• Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media
• Encyclopedia of Distributed Learning
• Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration
• Encyclopedia of Human Development
• Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development

Emerald ebook series on trial

There is currently a trial of ebooks from Emerald. Some of the series from the social sciences collection include:

• Advances in Early Education and Day Care
• Advances in Research on Teaching
• Advances in Special Education
• Comparative Social Research
• International Perspectives on Higher Education Research
• International Perspectives on Inclusive Education
• Sociological Studies of Children and Youth
• Syntax and Semantics
• Advances in Education in Diverse Communities: Research Policy and Praxis
• Advances in Gender Research
• Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities
• Current Perspectives in Social Theory
• International Perspectives on Education and Society
• Political Power and Social Theory
• Research in the Sociology of Work
• Studies in Educational Ethography
• Studies in Qualitative Methodology
• Advances in Education and Administration
• Research in Sociology of Education

Should we add this to our collection? Let us know what you think.

Naxos Music Library on trial

The Library has just organised a trial of Naxos Music Library which is a comprehensive collection of online music covering Classical, Jazz and World music. See the Library information for login details and don’t forget to provide some feedback if you would like the Library to subscribe to this resource.

Scopus database on trial

The Library has a trial currently of Scopus, a major abstract and citation database and web-based research tool provided by Elsevier in cooperation with a number of university research libraries. It covers the broad discipline areas, including the social sciences. There has been a lot of interest in Scopus over the last little while because, like Web of Science, it allows you to measure research impact by giving you information on the citation of articles, papers and other document types.

Should we add this database to our collections? Please give it a try and use our evaluation form to let us know soon.

Two databases on trial

On trial until 22 October 2008

BERG Journals offers university libraries a wide range of journals with a strong focus on culture and the visual arts. Berg journals collection holds currently 13 peer-reviewed and highly respected publications with 3 launches planned in 2009. All journals are ideally suited to undergraduate and graduate students, and lecturers across research departments.

The following journals are available for the BERG journal trial:

• Anthrozoos
• Cultural and Social History
• Cultural Politics
• The Design
• Fashion Theory
• Food, Culture & Society
• Home Cultures
• The Journal of Modern Craft
• Material Religion
• Photography & Culture
• The Senses & Society
• Textile
• Time & Mind

Inderscience are publishers of academic, scientific and professional journals in the areas of:

• Science, engineering and technology
• Management, business administration and law
• Computing, internet and ICT
• Energy, environment and sustainable development.
• Economics, accounting and finance
• Education, learning and human resources development
• Healthcare and medical engineering
• Public policy and public administration
• Risk assessment, safety and emergency management
• Arts, entertainment and leisure

Should we add these resources to our collections? Test these databases and use our evaluation form to let us know what you think.

Trial of ebooks and Britannica online

We currently have a couple of trials going.

My iLibrary provides ebooks from some major publishers, including Pearson Education, Palgrave Macmillan and Wiley Blackwell. This looks like quite a good collection of ebooks for the education area.

You will have heard of Encyclopedia Britannica . This is the online version.

I would encourage everyone to try My iLibrary especially and give feedback using the online form at the trials page. The library wouldn’t usually proceed with a subscription unless there is positive feedback from the RMIT community.

PapersInvited database on trial

The Library has a trial of another unusual type of resource: a multidisciplinary database of calls for papers for upcoming conferences and special issues of scholarly journals.

It comes via the CSA platform that many will be familiar with from searching ERIC. It is updated three times a month, it allows cross-discipline searching, there is an alerting service for receiving emails on items that may interest you, and there are outside links to conference websites etc.

Login details are available from the Library news page, where you will also find a link to the feedback form if you wish the Library to consider subscribing.